Chapter 26
SOFIYA
I’d barely shaken the sleep from my eyes when the text came in from Cesare.
Maddie’s going into labour now – she’s asking for her sisters. Don’t disappoint her.
I blinked at the screen, half annoyed at the heir’s asshat assumption that I’d let my sister down, half excited but terrified because Maddie’s due date wasn’t for another week.
One second I was imagining dinner at their Upper East Side condo, with the expectant grilling that came with each meeting with my big sister, the next I was thrown into a frantic rush to the car with my younger sister Jacinta and Mother, who admittedly had been equally curious about the whispers swirling around a certain sighting with Rafa in Montréal.
But bless them, they’d kept their questions to themselves.
Whatever Stefano had griped about once he was done shitting himself after Rafa’s treatment was also making its rounds on the family grapevine.
Thankfully, Maddie’s news was a good distraction that even my father seemed to be grudgingly interested in. Although he’d elected to stay home, almost sneering at the thought of breathing the same air as the Salvatores.
I didn’t say out loud what I really thought about that. That my father was plain terrified of our enemies.
He was still in the dark and worried about Nonno’s whereabouts, and since I had that news to break, I was happy to leave him to his sneering. One less headache to deal with.
We barrelled onto the FDR at dawn, weaving between empty cabs, until the horizon bled from night black to pale gold.
Sirens wailed as we peeled into the private hospital’s entrance.
Now we enter like a procession, Jacinta, Mama, and me, flanked by three Mancinelli capos trailing close behind, their suits tight over the bulges of holstered weapons.
Their eyes sweep every corner of the maternity wing, expressions grim and twitchy, as if someone might try to whack us between contractions.
We rush past nurses whose eyes flit between the familiar faces of Salvatore and Mancinelli, a rare togetherness they suspected they’d never see again.
Soon enough the whispers drill down into the topic more salacious than the arrival of the future Salvatore heir – the Salvatore enforcer and another Mancinelli.
It doesn’t help that he’s the first thing I see when we step onto the private floor the heir booked exclusively to usher in the arrival of his first born.
He’s leaning against the far wall, arms crossed, expression unreadable – until his gaze lands on me. Then it changes. Darkens. Sharpens and heats.
He makes no effort to hide the blatant interest in his eyes as he looks me over, slow and deliberate. Like he’s already undressing me in his head, reliving everything he did to me a few short hours ago.
Cheeks flushing, I glare.
Fucking stop.
Make me, tigra, his gaze fires back as he smirks and keeps looking, fully aware it’ll fuel the gossip now simmering in every corner of the hospital.
I silently vow to make him pay for it later. But the truth twists inside me, giddy and unstoppable. A part of me… a very big part, is thrilled.
No one has ever looked at me like that without wanting something impossible from me. Without a snapped command before I’ve even taken a breath.
The way Rafa looks at me… it’s like I belong to him.
Like I’m the answer to an important question he’s searched for for a while.
For the first time, maybe I’m beginning to understand why Maddie threw caution to the wind last year.
Because sometimes being claimed by the right person… the right man, feels like the best high in the world.
Even if that man’s the very last person on earth you should allow such a privilege.
His expression loses shades of playfulness, though, as we approach, sterile light giving way to the softer hush of the birthing suite.
And he’s in full mafiosi enforcer mode when he steps into our path, arms crossed, brown eyes hard and lethal.
‘Only the women go in,’ he says flatly, gaze locking on the capos like he’s already counted how fast he can flatten each of them. From experience, I know not long at all.
One of my bodyguards shifts forward, puffed up and scowling. ‘We have orders. No one goes in unescorted—’
‘You want to bring guns into a delivery room?’ Rafa’s voice drops, all calm ice. ‘Sure. Let’s traumatise the baby before it even opens its eyes. Real legacy move.’
The capo bristles. I step between them, hand raised. ‘It’s okay. We’ve got this. Wait outside.’
Rafa doesn’t look away from the man, but his mouth crooks in a warning smirk. ‘Blink again like that and I’ll think you’re asking me to babysit your funeral.’
Tension clings like smoke even after the men fall back, and the three of us slip through the door. Inside is a world away from the outside.
A serene Maddie lies in a crisp white gown, belly round under the thin sheet, watching, half-amused, as Cesare paces like a caged lion at the bottom of her bed, jaw taut, hands clenching and unclenching.
His alpha composure cracks with every beep of the monitor and every contraction-induced moan Maddie tries to suppress.
As I shut the door behind us, he drops to one knee beside her, frantically pressing a kiss to her hand like she’s the last sacred thing in a ruined world. ‘Goddess, tell me what I can do?’ he murmurs, voice rough.
Jacinta mutters, ‘Yikes, he looks like he’s half a second from storming into her womb and charging out with the baby himself.’ She masks it with a cough.
Before I can smother my own laugh, Maddie shoots us both a glare between contractions. ‘Unless you’re offering ice chips or back rubs, zip it with the smartass remarks.’
Jacinta raises both hands in surrender, grinning. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
Maddie exhales through her nose like a dragon in labour. ‘Damn right.’
Cesare doesn’t miss a beat, his dark grey eyes flitting over us, lingering longest on me. ‘Laugh it up now. When your time comes, I’ll be there – with snacks, insults, and a stopwatch.’
I glare at him, but he just lifts a brow and gives me a mock-sweet smirk that practically says You’ll fold too, Principessa.
Before Jacinta can fire back, Cesare’s gaze sweeps across the room like a storm system. ‘This is a birth, not a circus. One more word out of either of you and I’ll personally have you reassigned to diaper duty for the next five years.’
His tone is cool steel, quiet but lethal. The room goes silent.
Maddie grunts, grabs his wrist and mutters, ‘My hero.’
‘You want me to stay?’ the heir mutters, back to worshipping his wife.
The room is warm, humming with tension and love, the air thick with perfume, antiseptic, and the weight of legacy. Maddie exhales loudly, then shakes her head. ‘It’s okay, I need a moment,’ she says, voice tight but clear. ‘With my sisters and my mom.’
Cesare kisses her knuckles, then his dark eyes sweep over all three of us like a security check he doesn’t trust. ‘You have five minutes. Then I want my wife back.’
Then he’s gone, the door clicking shut behind him.
As he steps into the hallway, Rafa falls into step beside him.
Maddie leans back against the pillows, her face flushed and damp, but there’s a rare peace in her eyes.
Jacinta props herself on one side of the bed. ‘I should ask if he’s always like that but I’m not sure I want to know the answer,’ she half-jokes under her breath.
I sit on the other, brushing damp curls from her temple, and she leans into the touch like it anchors her. Between us, our mother, Vittoria, clasps Maddie’s hand with fingers that – miraculously – don’t tremble today.
‘I prayed for strength,’ Vittoria says softly, her voice thready but steady, ‘but I never knew it would come through you.’ She smiles, and there’s pride in it, and it’s not the apologetic kind I’m used to, but the quiet kind that carries meaning.
‘You’ve carried all our broken pieces and made something whole. ’
Maddie blinks hard. Her voice breaks as she whispers, ‘I just want to do better – be better – for him.’ She places a hand over her belly.
Jacinta kisses her cheek.
I lean in and press my forehead to hers. For one fragile second, there are no guns, blood feuds or ghosts. We’re simply sisters and a mother, breathing in borrowed peace. We’re the Mancinelli women; the ones our men mistakenly believed were weak without them.
Then the machines spike – beeping loud and fast.
The door slams open, and Cesare barrels in, jaw clenched, eyes wild. ‘Out. Now.’
We scatter, hearts thudding but fuller than they were a minute ago.
But maybe that moment doesn’t need to be lost forever.
Maybe… another path, however dangerous, through this Mancinelli-Salvatore war zone is possible.
When Nicolo Gaetano Salvatore’s first wail echoes, more than one set of eyes mists on the hospital floor.
And when, a long ten minutes later, Cesare opens the door, his face etched in awe and raw adoration, a lump builds in my throat.
Maddie is radiant and my nephew is perfect. Perfect fingers and toes, a tuft of dark hair and a chest already rising and falling in tiny, determined breaths.
A whole new life, wriggling and blinking against the weight of the world, utterly unaware of the bloodshed that made his existence possible.
And maybe it’s selfish, but for just a second, I want to believe he’ll never have to carry the legacy carved into the bones of our families. That maybe this boy, born in a flash of light and love, might be spared the dark.
Cesare leans into Maddie’s sweat-slicked shoulder, and I can’t help but stare, more than a little mesmerised, and yeah, a touch jealous at this family in its fullest, rawest form.
Cesare catches my eyes across the bed. In his glance, I see pride, relief… and something else that makes my spine tingle.
I’m not surprised at all when he orders, ‘Give us the room, please. Rafaelle. Sofiya. You stay.’
Shit. Shit shit shit.
Rafa eyes me, a touch of puzzlement in his own eyes not quite eroded by his perennial smirk as he tips his head towards me. ‘What’d you do now, picciridda? Steal the baby’s trust fund already?’